Episode 233 - The Cost of Board Games
April 17, 2025
Ambie and Crystal discuss a couple games they played recently, including Top Tier and Bag of Chips. Then, we talk about how the US tariffs might affect the board game industry (especially for publishers and retailers in the US).
Intro: 0:00
Recent Games: 0:38
US Tariffs: 12:35
Outro: 22:09
Bloopers: 23:13
Games discussed this episode:
Top Tier: 0:38
Wavelength: 3:17
ito: 3:30
Bag of Chips: 5:57
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.
Board Game Blitz's theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Transcript
[0:06] Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 233 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to figure out WHY seven ate nine. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about the true cost of board games! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Top Tier and Bag of Chips. Then, we talk about how US tariffs might affect the board game industry. And now, here are your hosts…
Ambie: Ambie
Crystal: and Crystal
[0:38] Ambie: Recently, I got a review copy of Top Tier. This is a party game from Indie Boards and Cards, designed by Amar Dzomba, Dom Korzecke, and Tyler O'Tsuji. Not sure how those are pronounced, but Top Tier is a party game. It's a cooperative party game. It says about ranking everyone and everything. So it's like a tier ranking party game. You know, tier ranking like S tier A, B, C, and D. All those tier ranking things that you do online. This is a party game with that. So the game is one person is going to get this tier card that has like the S, A, B, C, and D. And it's a whiteboard dry erase thing. And then they're going to secretly get a category card. And the categories are like, "Who would be the best Disney princess?" or "Who would be the best wingman?" And so there's a bunch of-- there's a big deck of these category cards. So they'll write it here. But everyone else does not know what that is. And then everyone else is going to come up with eight contenders. So these are like characters, people. They could be people you know, or famous characters, or fictional characters, or animals. Anything. And so they come up with eight of those. And then the person will rank them or tier list them. It's not ranking because you don't put one above the other. You just--
Crystal: These are in this tier and these are in this tier.
Ambie: Yeah. So then they'll do that. So people will come up with the names without knowing what the category is. So the names are just kind of like random. They also give you a list of names that you can use if you can't think of them on your own.
Crystal: So basically, somebody could say like, "Street Fighter contenders." And somebody could put like, "Flounder from the Little Mermaid." And you have to rank where Flounder would go.
Ambie: Yeah. So the category cards are all given ones. "How good would they be at juggling two dates at the same time?" And so--
Crystal: Flounder would not be good at that.
Ambie: And then they have these cards that are just the letters of the categories. And you put those on the table. And then the person who ranked them puts these chips to show how many in each tier there are. So they say, "Okay, there's three in the S tier. There's one in the A tier," et cetera. And then the other players work together to put the ones in which tier they think it is. So it's like, "Okay, Flounder's obviously D tier and the other ones..." And like, "Wait, but then would this one be above this one? Or maybe this other one's in D tier because there's only one in D tier." So there's some discussion there. And then you flip them over and see how many you got right. And you get points. We didn't really score. You get points for how many you got right in the correct tier. And then it says to keep playing until everyone has been the tier ranker person once or until you're done having fun-- or until you're not having fun anymore or something. So it's like, "Play until you're done playing" games. And so we didn't really keep score either. We did get perfect the first one, not the other ones. But anyway, so this game, it was okay. It's kind of a similar feel to a Wavelength-type game where the discussion had kind of a feel of that, where you're discussing where things are in relation to other things. But I think that the tier ranking made it that less interesting than Wavelength or ito, where you're comparing it directly to another thing. Like Flounder is better than this other D tier. Like in here, if they're both D tier, you don't care which one's better. But I like where it's more granular and you're comparing them all. I think there's more interesting discussion in that. And then also for us, figuring out characters was kind of-- It was okay. But we ended up just reusing characters for the future rounds because we got tired of that. You can just use the ones from here.
Crystal: But-- I mean, it feels like if you are with a group of people who all have a very large shared knowledge of pop culture, that could be really interesting. But if even one person in the group doesn't have that same level of knowledge, then it's going to be less fun for them, right? Because they won't really be able to actively participate.
Ambie: Yeah, because then we kept-- There would be ones that everyone knows, but I didn't really know that well. Or like, I know I've heard their name, but I don't really know much about them. Or then someone actually got confused about what someone was, like a historical person. Yeah, I guess it mostly matters if the person who's ranking them knows. So we had the person who was ranking them veto the ones and like, okay, make a new one for this one and this one. And so--
Crystal: Okay. I could see a situation where you end up with like a whole bunch of characters or people that don't at all fit a category. And so then you kind of just have to like figure it out. And that could be a little awkward.
Ambie: I think most of the categories were like general enough. They're all things that people can do. So like the things that you're doing have to be characters, like who can do things. Although we did like just shark from Jaws, which-- I forget what category we got for that. Oh, I think actually it was surviving on a deserted island. And so it was in D tier because the shark, if it were on the island, it would just--
Crystal: Yeah, he wouldn't survive.
Ambie: He wouldn't survive in D tier.
Crystal: That's funny.
Ambie: Yeah, so yeah, it has funny stuff. But I think because like we have other party games that I think have that discussion that I like more like Wavelength or ito, which is the newer one that we've been playing. This one is not my top tier of party games. But yeah, I could see it being fun for people if maybe they like tier lists more or they like specifically characters and people, famous people and stuff, pop culture people. If they specifically like that, whereas I'm not as into people, like knowing lots of people and stuff. So yeah, that was Top Tier from Indie Boards and Cards, which I got a review copy of.
[5:57] Crystal: Well, I recently have been playing a cute little game called Bag of Chips, which its packaging looks like a bag of chips.
Ambie: I remember seeing pictures of this.
Crystal: It is- It's cute. And the tokens are little chip shaped tokens too. So and what's funny is spoiler alert, I like the game and it's kind of quirky. And when I went to look up the details of this game on Board Game Geek for this episode, one of the designers, Théo Rivière, like that French designer whose games I just always happened to like. And I did not even know that this was his. Also designed by Mathieu Aubert. So co-design, but I was just like, of course it's Théo. Like someday I need to meet this man because I love his work. But yes, Bag of Chips, the salty and tasty game as the bag proclaims published by Mixlore and a bunch of other publishers. Blue Orange Games, I believe is who publishes it in the US. But in this game, it is very much a luck centric game. If you are looking for deep strategy and planning and that this is not that game. But if you're looking for some fun, I really enjoy this one quite a bit.
So there are 25 chips in the bag and they come in five different colors, but there are different numbers of different colors of chips. So there's only like three of one of the chip colors. And there are seven of a different chip color and everything in between. And during each round, a certain number of chips will get pulled out of the bag and put onto that like a little card. And each round you have a number of objective cards that each player has been dealt. And then as soon as you pull chips from the bag, you have to choose objective cards to discard out of your hand. And those objective cards show a bunch of different things. They are states that you want the game to exist in at the very end of the round. After you've pulled chips out of the bag four separate times. So for instance, it might say that you get a certain number of points per yellow chip that comes out, just flat out points. Or it might say if there are two of every color of chip, once the round ends, you get a certain number of points. Or it might be if the last chip pulled is a certain color, you get points for that. And the point values on these objective cards vary wildly. There are some cards that could get you like 10, 20 points. And there are cards that will get you like 100 points. Those are obviously really tough objectives to meet. So you discard some objectives in the first three little round parts of the round when you're pulling chips out of the bag. And then at the very last section of the round, you will have a total of three objective cards left in your hand. And you have to choose one to put on the red side and two to put on the green side. And this is important because this is right before the last two chips are pulled. And once those chips are pulled, you will score all three of those objective cards. If the objective was not met, nothing happens. But if the objective was met, then you either get the points for it if it was on the green side, or you lose the points for it if it was on the red side. So the thing is, it's weird because early on, you might want to discard some of the really tough objectives that have high point values. But if you hold on to those and you get lucky in one of them triggers, then you can get a lot of points.
Ambie: But then you have to put one on the red side, right?
Crystal: Yes, you have to. So you don't want three cards in hand.
Ambie: if you only save good ones that's not good
Crystal: Yeah, you don't want three cards in hand that are all definitely going to happen, because you will lose points if you do that. So it's a little it's an interesting like, you want to keep stuff that's kind of like iffy, right? Like, oh, this could happen, but might not. And I always try and keep something that's like kind of low point value, no matter what, because at least then if it goes on the red side, it won't be too bad if it scores. Each round, whoever scores the most points gets a little golden coin token gets two, I should say, sorry, gets two tokens, and whoever scores the second most points gets one. And the first player to get four of those little coins wins the game. So it can take a variable number of rounds as few as two, or as many as I don't know how many, I guess, how much you distribute the wins each round. Very simple. I think this is definitely a game that you could teach to anybody. Again, like I said, no real hardcore strategic depth here. But it's fun. And those decisions where you're trying to decide like, do I keep both of these objectives that have really high point values that could happen? Or sometimes you'll see one and you're like, oh, it wants all three of this one color to come out. And we're we've only got two chips left to pull. And there's none of them so I can get rid of that. Like, sometimes it's easy. And sometimes it's hard. But the game plays quickly, as you would expect. And yeah, I like it. This is not one that I desperately need in my collection. But I really enjoy playing. And I'm happy that it's on board Game Arena so I can play it digitally as well. So that is a bag of chips. So if you're looking for a snack during game night, this one's a good one to snack on.
Ambie: So do you have the physical one?
Crystal: I don't. It's like one of those things where I'm like, this is a cute game to own.
Ambie: How would you store it? This is a bag, right?
Crystal: Like, yeah, that's a good question. This is one of those instances where I almost like, I'm happy that they didn't go with a traditional box because there are some times when publishers have made weird packaging choices that didn't make sense. But this one totally does. If I were to get this game, I would want to like put a little like peg somewhere on my game shelf or on the wall next to the game shelf and get a chip clip and literally hang the game on a chip clip like near the shelf. Like I think that would be a cute little like people would be like, what is that game? So that is how I suggest you store a bag of chips if you acquire it is get a chip clip that has a little hole in it and hang your bag of chips up. Or I guess you could store it in the pantry and then put some of it over.
Ambie: I was going to say, don't do that. Don't put it
Crystal: all of a sudden your kids are like, man, mom, these healthy chips you bought are really awful. They taste horrible.
[12:35] Crystal: So the topic that is kind of going around the board game industry right now, everywhere you look is how tariffs that are being implemented here in the United States are potentially going to and are already affecting the board game industry. To be clear, we are not discussing the political implications of anything involving tariffs, but we are going to discuss what the effect of increased tariffs, especially products coming from China might mean for board game publishers and for us as board game consumers. So just wanted to state that up front.
Ambie: We're not economists or anything. So we're not experts on this. So we just know what we've heard from people. But I do know that a lot of manufacturing of board game specifically happens in China. I know a lot of the big manufacturing companies that people use, like there's Panda Manufacturing, there's LongPack, I think. Those are both in China. Yeah, because I had met some of those when I was doing my book, I ended up going with just a book manufacturer. But yeah, there's a lot of board game ones. And they have all this stuff set up. They know how to make all of the board game stuff, which it's hard to make.
Crystal: And I think for anybody who has seen the evolution in board games over the past few decades, if you really think about it, it's kind of obvious that the people producing the components have gotten better at doing what they do. And that is for a variety of reasons. But doing it over time and learning how to do it better and improving those processes is part of that. And one of the arguments that people have made as to why this wouldn't affect board games as much would be like, oh, well, you could just open a manufacturing factory here in the United States. But the thing is that the materials and the components like the actual like the raw materials also are part of the equation. And the shipping and distribution channels are also already all set up. And all of that has been built up over literal decades. Building a factory is one thing. But then having the infrastructure to support that factory is a much bigger undertaking than I think the average consumer usually recognizes.
Ambie: Yeah. And like even when I was looking at books, I was looking at printed in China versus printed in the US. And I was trying to find one that was printed in the US just so like shipping would be easier. But then the board books that were printed in the US, well, first of all, like when I was doing it, they weren't open for business. Also, like I think they get the actual blank book paper, like that stuff from China. And so increased prices there would affect the downstream no matter what.
Crystal: And whether the global economy should be so reliant on a single country or not is definitely a bigger topic. But this is the way the global economy has been built. Like this is the way it exists currently, whether that is right or good is not the current issue. It is for especially small board game publishers. Currently, there are people already getting laid off from their jobs. There are publishers who have shipping containers on the water right now who are bringing games over from overseas who were expecting to pay a certain amount for those games when they arrived and will now be paying a significantly larger amount of money to get those games off of a boat. And Ami Baio from Pink Tiger Games posted something publicly on Facebook, which we will link to in the show notes.
Crystal: But she kind of broke it down in an easy to understand way. And so I wanted to kind of give a little bit of that as a reference point. So she said, if I order 2000 games from my manufacturer in China that are $5 each, then I pay the manufacturer $10,000. The 145% tariff is on the $10,000. So once the shipment of 2000 games gets to port in the US, I will have to pay $14,500 to US customs. So pink tiger games now has to pay an additional $14,500 for their $10,000 order of board games. So that makes now their total bill $24,500 for their $5 game, which makes it actually cost them $12 and 25 cents to produce. And normally, the markup for board games is around five times the production cost. That's kind of the market like standard the industry average. So her $5 game, which would normally be sold for like $20 $25, if it's costing her $12 and 25 cents to produce, you can do the math there like it becomes unsustainable really quickly, especially for publishers that are not producing significantly larger amounts of games and have that infrastructure set up to support the amount of money needed to put up front to be able to do these things because a lot of game publishers are kind of the smaller ones are often like we make a game, we get that out the door. Now we worry about the next game. And I would imagine for larger companies like Asmodee, it might be easier to weather some of this potentially, but Asmodee is not even an American company, right? They're based overseas. So first off, Ami, I don't I don't know if you listen to our podcast, but I can't even imagine the situation that you and a lot of other small publishers are facing right now, because I know of nobody who works in board game production in any capacity, who's doing it to get rich, not a single one, they are all doing it for the love of gaming, every single one of them. And this has the potential to put a lot of publishers out of business. And that breaks my heart, because I think a lot of the creativity and innovation that we've seen in board games, especially over the past like 2025 years, has been as a result of more individuals being able to get into the game.
Ambie: Yeah, a lot of the modern hobby is like indie publishers, or like self publishers, or people, just people who love board games, designing a new board game or thinking of new things. And like even the big publishers in board games are like indie publishers compared to other industries.
Crystal: Oh, yeah. So you know, and then even for consumers, so it'll be harder for publishers, potentially to produce games, and then get them over to the states, it'll be harder for us as consumers to buy games on our own from overseas, because in theory, then that could affect us, it'll be harder to get those like imported games, like I love ordering games from overseas, like from Japan and things occasionally, and that might become more difficult. And then there's a whole other industry that will also potentially be affected. And that would be friendly local game stores here in the United States, which have been, I would say blossoming over the past couple of decades, and a lot of their business is predicated on selling board games. And if people aren't able to make as many board games, then we run the risk of losing out on some of those game stores as well if the market starts to dry up. So I don't think that gamers are going to stop wanting games. But if there aren't as many being produced, then or
Ambie: if they get just like too expensive.
Crystal: That's true. And that's the thing board gaming is already a little bit of a luxury hobby. Now, it's when you look at it kind of like from a 30,000 foot view, it's not as bad as some people make it out to be because you know, people will be like, Oh, a $60 board game. That's ridiculous. But when you compare it to say going to the movies for people going to the movies will cost the same amount of money as a single board game. And so, you know, how do you compare one form of entertainment to another? But board games are not cheap to buy already for many people, especially those who are not already privileged and have disposable income. And so if they get more expensive, the hobby risks becoming even more insular and less welcoming to new gamers, because it will be prohibitive for them to even attempt to join the hobby. Like if they look at the shelves and every game is $100 or more, who wants to start that hobby? You know, like that's like, oof, like I'll read a book. I don't know. Something. The whole thing is a little not just confusing, but scary for the people who work in board games right now. So I would say if you are somebody who wants to help support your friendly local game store, support small indie publishers, you can do that by buying directly from them. If they offer sales on their web store, often more of the money of the sale of the game will go to the publisher if you are buying direct from them rather than through a retailer. I recognize that that kind of flies against the support your friendly local game store, but both are possible, right? You can support both in different ways. And at the very least, if there's a publisher or a designer that you like, reach out to them on social media and are just like, you know, tweet at them and say, hey, thinking of you, love your stuff. Just like, I know things are rough right now. I can't even imagine what all of these people are going through. And so I am hopeful that things will change and not be as bad as they look at the moment. But it's hard to say where things are going currently.
[22:09] Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. If you were worried that you missed out, don’t fret! You can still late pledge on Kickstarter to get a copy of the 10th Anniversary Edition of Champions of Midgard. And if you want to directly support our amazing sponsor for the past 8 years, please go pick up some games at greyfoxgames.com, but don’t forget that you get 10% off your purchase, including exclusives, when you use the code BLITZ10 at checkout!
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Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Until next time,
Play some more, mon amour
I’ll bring my board games right to your front door
Bye everyone!
Crystal: Bye!
[23:13] Ambie: So people will come up with the names without knowing what the category are, is.
Crystal: Like simple easy way to way understand, easy to understand way
Crystal: disposable income at their disposal. Disposable income at their disposal. Yes, that is exactly what I said.
Ambie: And if you want to directly support the... And if you want to directly support a US based board...
Crystal: I know there's a lot of words there.
Ambie: And if you want to directly support a US based board game publisher... Publisher, publisher.
And if you want to directly support a US based board game publisher and...
There's so much to say in this sentence.
Crystal: I know. Okay. So hold on. Let me rewrite it. Hold on.
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